


Looking for the Key (to set me Free)

by lizardwriter



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Background SwanQueen, F/F, HSAU, High School AU, Nonmagic AU, mentioned Regina Mills/Emma Swan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-05-27 01:07:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15013385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizardwriter/pseuds/lizardwriter
Summary: Robin is newly eighteen and feels trapped by her life and the true her feels invisible. She meets someone else who feels invisible in the most unexpected of places. In truly seeing each other maybe they can just find themselves.





	1. Jail Bird

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my Mad Archer High School AU! This is a nonmagical AU. It will flip flop povs every chapter. First chapter is Robin. It should be apparent by the voice and other clues whose pov it is. I love these two so much, and it's all puppyanimagus's fault. (If you aren't reading A Pirate's Life, then what are you even doing on this website?) I miss seeing their faces on my TV. Also, there will be background SwanQueen because I couldn't resist. 
> 
> I'm juggling other stories and a 4-yr-old and 1.5-yr-old twins, so I'll do my best to update as often as I can, but it may not be the most regular update schedule.

High school was Robin Mills’ time to shine. 

That was the idea, anyway. 

She had the “right” clothes. She’d made the “right” friends. She was in the “in” crowd. She was one of the popular girls. Other girls in school wanted to BE her. 

Except they didn’t. 

Not really.

Being her SUCKED. 

She was newly eighteen, in theory she should be free, right? Except she wasn’t at all. She was stuck in the same town that she’d always been stuck in, about to start her senior year at the same school she’d been in forever, with the same people she’d always known.

And not a single one of them really knew her.

Not that she’d ever really given them a chance to find out. 

No, Robin was not shining in high school. She wasn’t even happy in high school. She was trapped and Storybrooke High School - Hell, the whole damn town - was her cage.

She picked at the piece of pie on the table in front of her at Granny’s Diner and looked longingly out of the window.  

“I have GOT to get out of here,” she mumbled. 

  
  


It was a bad idea. She KNEW, logically, that it was a bad idea.

It’s just the car was RIGHT THERE. 

It was dark. There was nobody in sight. She had been practically begging the stars for an escape, and there it was.

Okay, a yellow VW Bug was hardly inconspicuous. 

And, okay, okay, this particular one happened to belong to the Sheriff. 

But it was really like the universe wanted her to at least try. 

She OWED it to herself to at least try, right? 

She tried the handle. It was unlocked. 

Of course, it was unlocked, it was the Sheriff’s car, the logical part of her brain argued. Who in their right mind would try to steal the Sheriff’s car?

Still, it seemed like a sign, so apparently the answer was: her. 

It took her a quick google search and a few tries before she managed to get the plastic off of the steering column. Then it took her a few minutes to work out where each bundle of wires led so that she could be sure she had the one she needed. A quick search and a hunting knife in the glove compartment made stripping the wires easier than she’d anticipated, though she worked slowly and carefully, checking and rechecking the wires she touched before cutting into the protective plastic casing on any of them. It wouldn’t really do to electrocute herself. She held her breath as she twisted the two wires she’d exposed together. 

Well, she was still breathing. That was a good start. 

She checked her phone. She’d really need to move a little quicker if she was going to get out of there before her mom came looking for her. It was already past curfew. 

“Ignition on/off wire, ignition on/off wire,” she muttered to herself as she surveyed her options. She sighed and pulled the car manual out of the glove compartment, too, using the light from her phone to skim it and find the right page. 

She was acutely aware that she was running out of time. Even if her mom didn’t find her, someone else was bound to notice her sooner or later. This was Storybrooke, after all. Everybody knew everything about everyone. 

It was downright claustrophobic. 

Okay, so she needed the brown wire. She took it and connected it to the battery wire, then carefully, carefully stripped the starter wire. 

She held her breath and touched the starter wire to the connected wires and was rewarded with the car starting. 

“Yes!” she exclaimed, a little too loudly. She looked around sheepishly, but there was still no sign of anyone. She revved the engine a few times and grinned as it purred. 

“Freedom time,” she said to herself as she put the car into gear and started down the road.  

Except the wheel wouldn’t turn. 

“Oh, shit! Oh, shit! Oh, shit!” She tried harder and harder to get it to turn, and then finally, with a loud crack, it did, just in time.  

She breathed out a large sigh of relief, then grinned again. 

Feeling giddy, she set off down the road. 

  
  


Robin groaned. She was only a few minutes past the welcome to Storybrooke sign and she could see the flashing lights in her rearview mirror. 

She supposed, realistically, that she should be happy she made it this far. 

She wasn’t. 

The realities of the aftermath of stealing the Sheriff’s car were starting to hit her, now that the high of freedom was fleeing further and further away as the flashing lights got closer and closer. 

Robin sighed heavily and pulled over to the side of the road to await her fate. She got out and leaned against the car, her chest heavy and her head hanging low.

The flashing lights came to a stop behind her. 

“Robin??” 

“Hi, Sheriff Swan,” she muttered sheepishly, giving a little wave and squinting into the bright headlights of the police car. At least she had the common sense to use her official title while she was so clearly on duty. 

“Would you care to tell me where you were taking my car?” 

Robin scrunched up her face. “New York?” 

Emma stepped closer to her, hands on her hips. There was the faintest hint of a smile curling at her lips, but for the most part she looked annoyed. “I see. And...Why, might I ask, are you taking my car to New York?”

Robin held up her hands and shrugged. She’d have loved to give an explanation, but the truth was she didn’t know how to go about expressing what she was feeling. “To get the hell out of this town,” was not an answer that was apt to get her very far. 

Emma sighed heavily and pinched the bridge of her nose. “You know I’m going to have to call your mom, right?”

“I’m eighteen now!” Robin argued. 

“I know. I was at your birthday,” Emma reminded her. “That is not a good thing. THAT means that you are legally an adult.”

“So you don’t have to call my mom?” Robin suggested, the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach growing by the second. 

Emma sighed again. “Your mom or your aunt. Which one am I calling? Your choice.”

  
  


Aunt Regina had not been the correct choice, apparently. She could have been cool. She could have been understanding. 

But, no. She’d decided to consult with her mom, and then they’d BOTH shown up at the station and then they’d ALL THREE gone into Emma’s office and decided that charges weren’t going to be pressed, but that didn’t mean she got to sleep in a real bed tonight. 

It was bullshit. 

“Alright, Jail Bird, in you go,” Emma said, holding the cell door open for her. 

“Really? Come on, Emma -”

Emma pointed to the badge on her waist and Robin sighed. 

“Sheriff Swan,” she corrected. “I really have to stay here overnight? You’re not even charging me!”

“The deal is, I don’t charge you if you spend the night here to think about your actions,” Emma replied. 

Robin rolled her eyes and made her way into the cell, arms crossed in front of her. She turned around as Emma shut the cell door in her face and gave it a little tug to make sure it was locked. 

“This is so unfair,” Robin complained.

“Robin, you stole the Sheriff’s car, and all you’re getting is a night in jail. You’re lucky you’ve mostly stayed out of trouble until now and I’m such good friends with your family, or this would not be how this turned out. So, turns out, you’re right! It’s not fair. It’s not fair to all the other people who don’t have your connections.”

Robin glared. “Good friends. Is that what you and Aunt Regina are calling it these days?”

Emma narrowed her eyes and pointed a stern finger at her. “Careful. Wouldn’t want to make it two nights.”

With that she walked away, leaving Robin to survey her new dubious surroundings.  

She was startled to realize that she wasn’t alone in the cell. Curious blue eyes studied her from beneath loose blonde curls. The girl was sitting on the uncomfortable-looking cement bench, hugging an oversized, army-green coat around her, and she looked familiar. 

Robin frowned. She’d seen her at school. She definitely did NOT run in her clique. In fact, Robin wasn’t sure she really ran in any clique. She was a bit of a loner, or at least Robin couldn’t remember ever really seeing her with anyone. What was her name? It was right on the tip of her tongue. She lived in that weird, tall building in the woods past the old well, Robin remembered. Everyone called it the tower. 

“Tower girl, right?” Robin asked, pointing at her. 

“It’s Alice, actually,” Alice replied. 

“Alice. That’s right. You’re...I’ve seen you around the art room.”

Alice nodded, looking a little surprised. 

“I’m -”

“Robin Mills. Queen of the school. Everyone knows who you are,” Alice cut her off. 

Robin laughed. She couldn’t help herself.  

“What?” Alice asked. 

Robin hesitated, then took a seat beside her. She’d heard rumors about Alice. People said her mother had locked her in her room for years when she was younger and she’d gone a little mad. She didn’t look especially mad, but it did mean that people probably wouldn’t listen to her if she tried to spill Robin’s secrets, so what could it hurt?

“People only think they know who I am,” Robin replied. 

Alice nodded, not looking remotely surprised by this revelation. 

“Aren’t you going to ask who I really am?” Robin asked, a little thrown by Alice’s apparent lack of interest. 

Alice shrugged. “At our age everyone’s invisible to a certain degree. Me more so than most.”

“But you just said that everyone knows who I am, so clearly I’m not invisible,” Robin argued, not really liking the insinuation. 

“And YOU just said that they only think they do. The real you is invisible. You’re too busy hiding it behind a mask.”

Robin considered this. She WANTED to tell Alice that she was wrong, but the truth was that she wasn’t. Not in the slightest.

“So are you just hiding behind a mask, too?” Robin asked. 

“No. I’m invisible because nobody really bothers to look at me.”

The way she said it was so matter-of-fact that it made Robin’s heart ache a little bit for her. That couldn’t really be true. Surely she had some friends. 

Robin studied her for a moment, and pretty blue eyes stared back unflinchingly. It was kind of unnerving. 

Robin leaned back against the cold wall of the cell. “So what are you doing in here?”

“I killed someone,” Alice replied in a cheerful voice. 

Robin jumped up and moved to the opposite side of the cell. “You WHAT?”

Alice was grinning, looking rather amused. 

It took her a second, but Robin caught on. “You’re joking.”

Alice nodded, barely containing a chuckle between pursed lips.  “I was beautifying the back of the hospital.”

“You were what?” Robin asked with a frown. 

Emma paused on her way through and looked in on them. “You were vandalizing the back wall of the hospital, Miss Jones.”

“I was improving it,” Alice retorted defensively.

Emma seemed to weigh her response. “It was a rather nice painting,” she conceded. “HOWEVER, the hospital did not want it there and it is not your property, so…”

“So she has to spend the night in jail? That doesn’t sound fair,” Robin cut in. 

Emma rolled her eyes. “You and fair. Who taught you that the world was fair, Robin? ‘Cause they lied.”

“Obviously the world isn’t fair, I just mean...are they really pressing charges when all she was trying to do was make it nicer? The paint is peeling off of half that building anyway!”

Emma sighed and massaged her temples. “Look, I’ve talked them down to a fine, but she can’t pay and I can’t get ahold of her dad, and…Stay out of police business, little Jail Bird!”

“Stop calling me that!” Robin grumbled. “Anyway, tell them she’ll do a payment plan or something and send her home.”

Emma looked from Robin to Alice and back, her brows furrowed in thought. “Get some rest, you two,” she advised, then went to her office and shut the door. 

“Thank you for standing up for me,” Alice said quietly as Robin moved back to the seat beside her. 

Robin shrugged, feeling a little self-conscious. She glanced at Alice, and the way that Alice was looking at her made her stomach do a little flip. 

She bit her lip, and ducked her head, turning away. 

“So you stole the Sheriff’s car?” Alice asked after a few minutes, sounding amused. 

“It wasn’t locked, in my defense,” Robin replied. “You overheard them talking?”

Alice nodded. “Were you running away?” she asked after a pause. 

“No!” Robin said defensively. “I was...escaping.”

Now that she said it out loud, it didn’t sound so different. The look on Alice’s face suggested that she thought the same. 

“I escaped once,” Alice volunteered. “Years ago.”

The rumors that Robin had heard resurfaced in her memory. Surely if Alice had truly been held captive in that house she wouldn’t still willingly be living there. 

“It doesn’t feel as good as you’d think it would,” Alice continued. “There’s all sorts of cages. You don’t have to be able to see the bars to feel it around you.” Alice gestured at the bars of the jail cell that held them and offered Robin a sad smile. 

Robin scooted a little closer without thinking about it. She’d never had a proper conversation with Alice until tonight, but somehow she felt almost protective of her. It was stupid, really, and Robin was sure that it would wear off by morning, but for now she wanted to offer what little comfort she could. 

“I know exactly what you mean,” she said, her shoulder bumping against Alice’s.

Alice’s smile turned from sad to almost radiant. 

Maybe the comfort they could provide each other, for the night, at least, was the knowledge that they weren’t alone in their cages. 

  
  


“Good morning, delinquents,” Emma said, rousing Robin from an uncomfortable sleep. 

Robin yawned and stretched and grabbed at the crick in her neck, massaging it grumpily. She looked over at Alice, who seemed to have faired the night a little better than her. She looked annoyingly good still, her blue eyes sharp, her dark eye makeup undisturbed. 

“So, I made a few more calls last night, and I’ve got good news,” Emma informed them, opening the door to the cell. 

“You’ve decided to give me your car and let me go?” Robin suggested. 

Emma gave her a look that suggested that she was unamused by that idea. “Nice try. No. The fine has been waived.”

Alice looked wide-eyed. “Really?”

Emma nodded. “On one condition.”

“What?” Alice asked eagerly. 

“You have to paint over your mural and work touching up the other areas on the building where the paint is peeling,” Emma explained. 

“I get punished for painting by...having to paint?” Alice asked. 

“The paint has to match the existing paint color of the building. No artistic license,” Emma warned. 

Alice looked a little disappointed. 

“And you, Jail Bird, get to help her. Since it was your idea,” Emma said turning to Robin. 

Robin balked. “What?? I didn’t-“

“You pointed out the state of the hospital’s paint job and you pointed out the unfairness of Alice being held because she couldn’t pay the fine,” Emma cut her off. “And you DID try to steal my car last night.”

“I did steal it, it just didn’t last very long,” Robin retorted, but Emma’s answering expression made her realize that she was not actually helping herself here. “Anyway, I already spent a night in jail for my crimes!” she pointed out. 

“And now you can help better your community. How horrible,” Emma deadpanned. 

Robin rolled her eyes and sighed. “School starts again next week. When are we supposed to do all this painting?”

“There’s this thing called weekend’s. Guess what you’ll be spending your next several Saturdays doing!?”

Robin did not appreciate how cheerful Emma looked about this. She looked to Alice for some commiseration, but Alice actually looked pretty happy about it. The grin on her face was a little crooked, rather charming, and suddenly the task didn’t sound quite as bad. 

Still…

“This is so unfair,” Robin grumped. 

“Again, kid, life is NOT fair,” Emma said, patting her on the back. “Now get outta here.”

  
  
  


Robin had not expected to see Alice again until Saturday at the hospital. 

Actually, she had been debating even going to that this week. She could always say she forgot, or cite prepping for the start of school. 

But there Alice sat, on the grass in front of town hall, wearing the same oversized, army green, hooded jacket as the night in jail. She was looking straight up at the sky, and she hadn’t noticed Robin yet. 

Robin watched her curiously for a moment, waiting for her to look down, but she didn’t. Robin contemplated just walking on past, but she was a little curious. Alice was bathed in sunlight, her blonde hair glowing around her face almost like a halo, her red lips and dark eye makeup standing out in stark contrast to her pale skin. The whole picture was stunning. 

Robin took a step closer, but Alice still didn’t notice. 

Robin smirked and crossed her arms. How close was she going to have to get before Alice noticed her? She was used to being noticed right away, but somehow she didn’t mind that that wasn’t the case right now. 

She realized as she stepped closer still that Alice’s hand was moving over a notebook in her lap even though she hadn’t glanced at it once. 

Robin cleared her throat, and finally Alice looked at her, startled. She put her hand up to shield her eyes and peered up at Robin, who could make out dark smudges of pencil on her hand. A crooked little grin spread across Alice’s face. 

“Hello, Jail Bird!” Alice greeted her. 

Robin’s smirk turned to a scowl. “Don’t call me that.”

“Okay, Jail Bird,” Alice replied happily.

Robin rolled her eyes and plopped down on the grass beside her. “What were you doing, Tower Girl?”

Two could play at the annoying nickname game. 

“Trying to capture the scene unfolding in the clouds,” Alice replied, glancing up again. 

Robin looked up too. There were a few clouds rolling in, but they just looked like clouds. “What do you mean scene?”

“Here,” Alice said, holding up her notebook. 

It was the clouds, but it was more than that. The clouds made up giants pushing fluffy boulders of cloud across the sky, heaving and straining. 

“It’s a bit rough,” Alice commented, glancing at it with a slight frown. 

“It’s amazing! But...how?? You weren’t even looking at the paper!”

Alice’s cheeks flushed pink, but she just shrugged. “I knew where I started and I didn’t lift the pencil much, so all I had to do was know where my hand moved and check it from time to time.”

Robin gawked. “I’m pretty sure if I tried that I’d end up off the page,” Robin replied. 

Alice giggled and the sound was light and melodic. 

Robin grinned in response. “Hey, no making fun.”

“I’m sure you’d do better than you think,” Alice said. “Do you want to try?”

She turned her notebook to an empty page and held it out to Robin. 

Robin shook her head. “No. I’m no good at art.”

Alice scoffed. “That’s ridiculous. You’re either more practiced or less practiced, but everybody starts somewhere. Art’s subjective, anyway.”

“Well, subjectively, then, you’re really good,” Robin offered with a small smile. 

Alice smiled back at her, a radiant smile that was so bright Robin felt like it might just bowl her over. She shifted uncomfortably. 

“I bet what you painted was a big improvement on the hospital wall.”

“It was,” Alice lamented, frowning once more. “It was a beautification project. Except, I guess I didn’t bother to check if anyone wanted it beautified.”

“That’s stupid. Who couldn’t use a little more beauty in their lives?” Robin countered. It was a little cheesy, she knew, but Alice didn’t seem the type who would mind. She was rewarded with another bright smile. 

“Well, I was going to see my aunt, so I should get going, but...I guess I’ll see you Saturday?” Robin asked as she got to her feet. 

“Ah, yes. Madame Mayor.” Alice looked up at her for a long moment, squinting against the sun, then she smiled. I guess so, Jail Bird.”

Robin rolled her eyes in annoyance, but didn’t bother to tell her to stop. “See you around, Tower Girl.”

She gave a little wave then headed into town hall. She glanced over her shoulder when she’d gone a few steps, only to see Alice looking at the sky and drawing once more. 

She was definitely a bit odd. 

Pretty, though, a voice inside her said. Like, REALLY pretty. 

She ignored it. 


	2. Community Service

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alice is lonely and then she's not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so appreciative of the feedback for chapter one! I hope you enjoy this chapter and Alice's pov as well!

Alice was used to being on her own. She’d spent a lot of time on her own growing up. At least now it was somewhat optional.

Or, at least, she could pretend that. 

She didn’t mind not being one of the popular kids. That life didn’t appeal to her in the slightest. And she did talk to people on occasion. Not just her teachers when she was called on, either. 

She knew that most people found her odd, and that didn’t really bother her either. 

It was the times that people seemed to look right through her - not in the way like they were seeing into her soul, but in the way where they weren’t seeing her at all. That was what got to her. 

That was what she’d anticipated when Robin Mills, beautiful, popular, Queen of the school, had walked into her jail cell. That was what she’d braced for. 

That was not what she’d gotten. 

  
  


She wasn’t used to being stood up for. 

That wasn’t entirely fair. Her father always stood up for her. When he was around. 

It wasn’t his fault that work took him away so much. It wasn’t hers either, she’d accepted long ago. 

He loved her, she knew without question, and he showed it in so many ways whenever could. It was just that so often he couldn’t. 

When he was gone, she had grown accustomed to fending for herself. She was fifteen when they’d decided she was capable of staying by herself when he had a trip. She knew she unsettled some of the men, and, though she hadn’t really had trouble keeping up with the school work, she had grown tired of having to prove to the teachers that she had, in fact, kept up with her lessons while on the ship, so after three years on and off the sea she had been mostly content to keep her feet on solid ground. 

It was just that it made for a bit of a lonely existence. 

Alice was good at spending time with herself though. She saw the world a little differently than most, she knew, and she lived in her head possibly more than most. That didn’t bother her. Not too much. 

But friends would have been nice. Real friends. The kind to have conversations with late at night while her dad was gone for a long haul. The kind who she could tell secrets and fears to. The kind who could help her find herself in the chaos of the world. The kind who would back her if she got in a bind. 

And then Robin Mills, Queen of Storybrooke High, most definite popular kid in the innermost of the “in” groups, looked at her in a curious kind of way and declared injustice on her behalf. 

It took Alice quite by surprise. 

It did something else, too. It set butterflies aflutter in her stomach and made her consider Robin Mills in a whole new light. 

That took her by surprise, too. 

  
  


Alice closed her eyes against the bright sky and saw green eyes the color of a calm sea. Green eyes that had just been peering curiously at her. Green eyes that had gone off to see her aunt. 

It was...unexpected, but certainly not unpleasant. 

There was no denying that part of what made Robin Mills so popular was her looks. The blonde hair, always styled into a perfect fishtail braid. The intelligent green eyes. The perfect pink lips curled up into a dazzling grin. The athletic figure. All of it played into this idea of her, this persona that she put on. 

Alice wasn’t impressed. 

Well, she could appreciate the beauty. It was hard to deny the beauty. It was the persona that had led her to largely ignore Robin before now. 

That persona was not who she’d met in jail the other night. It was not who she’d met on the lawn of town hall just now. 

She had a suspicion, and for now that was all it was, that she had been fortunate enough to meet the real Robin Mills. 

In return, she’d done her best to show Robin the real Alice Jones. 

Whoever she was. 

Alice was still working that out. 

  
  


The Saturday before school was to start Alice was up early. She was up early most mornings, but this time there was a reason. 

She wasn’t exactly excited to paint the hospital, not the boring way she had been instructed to, at least, but it was nice knowing she’d have company for the day. 

Especially today. 

She splurged on a chocolate chip muffin from Granny’s Diner on the way, and walked slowly, happily picking the chocolate chips out first before shoving the crumbs into her mouth in a rather unceremonious way. 

Her mouth was full as she rounded the corner of the hospital and came face to face with a grumpy-looking Robin and Sheriff Swan. 

“Hi,” she attempted around a mouthful of muffin, but it came out sounding more like a muffled, “Hrmp.” She offered a small wave and an awkward smile as well. 

Robin raised an eyebrow at her. She did not seem like a morning person. 

Alice didn’t mind. 

“Alice. How nice of you to join us,” Sheriff Swan said. 

“Not like it was optional,” Robin muttered. 

“Robin!” Sheriff Swan said in a warning tone. 

“Emma!” Robin shot back. 

Alice got the distinct impression that this was not the first time they’d gone through this this morning. 

Sheriff Swan narrowed her eyes at Robin for a second then turned to Alice with a smile that wasn’t quite genuine. “So the hospital has put the paint and rollers and brushes right over there. Ground level work only today, ladies. They’ll erect scaffolding when the time comes. Start with the mural and then go to touch ups. Any questions?”

Alice and Robin both shook their heads. 

“Do I really need to hang out and supervise you? Or can I trust you ladies to get the job done?” Sheriff Swan asked, leaning in a little and studying them both. 

“You can trust us,” Alice said with a smile at the same time that Robin replied, “I think we can handle it.”

“Good! Because I have better things to do with my time,” Sheriff Swan declared. 

“Better things, huh?” Robin challenged, looking smug. 

Alice watched with interest as Sheriff Swan glared, then rolled her eyes. She wondered if Robin was alluding once more to the relationship she’d suggested existed between the Sheriff and the Mayor. 

Sheriff Swan rolled her eyes and sighed. “Just get to work, Robin.”

Robin saluted in an over-the-top kind of way that carried no respect behind it. 

Sheriff Swan appeared to hold back another sigh, then she looked at Alice. “Good luck,” she muttered, then left them on their own. 

“Better things to do,” Robin muttered to herself. “Like I don’t have better things to do!”

“Well, she is the sheriff,” Alice pointed out. 

“She’s off-duty today. Her better things are dating my- Well, anyway, they’re not important things.”

So there was a relationship between Sheriff Swan and Mayor Mills that went beyond the professional. And even though she was annoyed, Robin thought enough of both of them to attempt to keep their secret. That was sweet of her, Alice thought. 

Alice offered Robin a bright smile. “Shall we?” she asked, gesturing at the paint supplies. 

Robin sighed and nodded. 

Alice grabbed a roller and a brush in one hand and a bucket of paint in the other and made her way on around to the back of the hospital where she’d painted the mural. 

Robin followed along behind her. 

Alice frowned when she saw that somebody had had the audacity to cover her artwork with a tarp. That was just uncalled for, and, quite frankly, a little cruel. Her mural was far better than an ugly tarp. 

“What’d you paint? ‘Fuck Storybrooke’ or something?” Robin asked. 

“What? No!” Alice exclaimed. Why would she paint something like that? 

She set down her supplies and tugged the tarp down. Behind her she heard Robin gasp. 

Alice stood back to examine her mural. She wished she’d been allowed to finish it. She hated incomplete work. Oh well. 

She turned to Robin and had to bite back a smile at the awe etched across her face. 

“You painted this??” 

Alice nodded. 

“Wow!” Robin breathed. “Who is that?”

“Iaso. She was the Greek goddess of recuperating from illness. Or at least that’s my imagining of her. And the flowers surrounding her and laying across her are calendula and roses, both used in homeopathic remedies. I was going for a health theme since it was the hospital,” Alice explained, trying her best not to be disheartened that it hadn’t been appreciated. 

“She’s gorgeous! Did you have a model in mind?”

Alice looked over the flowing dark hair and the bright green eyes on her picture and shook her head. “Noone in particular. That’s just what she looked like in my head.”

“That’s amazing! I mean I guess I understand why the hospital doesn’t want a naked woman on it, but it’s pretty tasteful, really, and your artwork is…” Robin faded out and shook her head. 

Alice caught the hints of a blush on her cheeks as she turned away back to the paint and the brushes. 

“Whatever, this town is full of idiots,” Robin muttered, setting about attempting to open a can of paint. 

Alice laughed as Robin tugged ineffectually at the lid to no avail. 

“What?” Robin grumped. 

“You need something,” Alice said, reaching into her jacket pocket and pulling out her pocket knife, “to give you a bit of leverage.” She opened her knife and dug it under the lid, then pressed down and the lid popped off and clanged to the ground. 

Robin eyed her for a moment. “You just carry that on you at all times?”

“It’s useful,” Alice replied. 

“I can see that,” Robin agreed. She thought for another moment. “I should get one.”

Alice grinned. “Probably,” she said, picking up a can and pouring some of the paint into a tray. She grabbed a roller and rolled it until it was coated then stepped back to take one last look at her mural. She sighed heavily. “What a waste” she muttered.

“Wait!” Robin said when she stepped forward. “Hang on. Go stand next to it,” she instructed, pulling out her phone. 

Alice frowned in confusion but did as requested. 

“Okay, now smile!” Robin instructed. 

Alice found that request easy to comply with looking at Robin. She smiled brightly, and Robin took her picture. 

“There. Now at least we have proof that the hospital once looked beautiful,” Robin said with a smile. 

Alice felt her heart skip a beat. “Yeah. However short-lived,” she agreed. When she lifted her paint roller this time she wasn’t quite as sad about it. 

  
  
  


“This is slave labor,” Robin complained, sinking to the ground and leaning heavily against the wall. 

“It’s not so bad,” Alice countered. 

She put down her brush from where she was touching up around some windows and sat down beside Robin. 

“Are you kidding me? It’s ridiculously hot, there is SO much to do, and we had to actually pay for food and water from the hospital cafeteria. You’d think Emma would at least have brought us lunch,” Robin grumped, wiping sweat off her brow.

Alice tried not to smirk when all she really succeeded in doing was smearing paint across it. 

“What?” Robin demanded. 

“You’ve got a bit of paint…” Alice said, gesturing to Robin’s forehead. 

“Ugh!” Robin said, pulling up her T-shirt, examining it for a clean spot, and then using it to wipe at her face. 

The smirk vanished from Alice’s face as she was met with the smooth, toned skin of Robin’s stomach. She swallowed hard and averted her gaze. 

“How’re you able to stay so cheerful anyway?” Robin asked her, letting her shirt drop back down. 

Alice shrugged. “I’ve had worse birthdays. It’s nice to have company at least.”

Robin gaped at her. “TODAY is your BIRTHDAY??”

Alice nodded. 

“And you’re stuck here doing this??”

Alice shrugged. “I like painting, even if this isn’t what I’d ideally like to be painting.”

“You should have told Emma! I’m sure she’d have let you off this week!” Robin argued, still clearly appalled by her revelation. 

If only she understood how lonely her day would have been then. “I’m pretty sure my date of birth was on my paperwork the other night,” Alice pointed out. 

“Okay, well, this is really just cruel and unusual punishment now!” Robin declared. 

Alice chuckled. It was nice of Robin to be bothered on her account, but without this project, police-mandated or not, she’d have spent the day much more alone. “I don’t mind. Really.”

“At least tell me you’re doing something fun after this,” Robin declared. 

Alice squirmed uncomfortably. She’d been happy to focus on the now so she didn’t have to think about the later. She wished her dad was home. He was going to try to be home, but they hit a storm a week back and it set them back. It wasn’t his fault, and she knew it, but that didn’t take away the ache that missing him created. “Umm, well, I was going to make myself some cupcakes,” she volunteered. 

Robin looked at her in silence for a long moment, her expression unreadable. “For a party?” she finally suggested. 

Alice forced out a small laugh. “Party of one, maybe,” she replied. She wasn’t looking for sympathy. She didn’t WANT sympathy. She saw it flash across Robin’s face nonetheless. 

“Oh,” Robin murmured. “But what about your Dad?”

“He’s away. He couldn’t get home in time. And before you ask about my mum, I wouldn’t want her there even if I knew where she was,” Alice assured her. 

Robin studied her for another long moment, opened her mouth as if to say something, appeared to think better of it, and closed her mouth again. “Sorry,” she mumbled. 

Alice shrugged. “It’s alright! I’m outside on a beautiful day with a...um...fellow delinquent, I guess, and I have a paintbrush in hand! Like I said: I’ve had worse birthdays!” 

Robin let out a small bark of laughter. “Fellow delinquent, huh?” 

“Well, really you’re more of a delinquent,” Alice teased. “My crime was just mild vandalism. Yours was grand theft auto.”

Robin laughed harder. “Mine was more like unapproved borrowing,” she argued. 

“Well, mine was more like unapproved beautification,” Alice retorted. 

Robin grinned at her. “Touché.”

Alice grinned back. She was going to have to watch herself around Robin Mills. She was not like she’d anticipated she’d be. 

She was so much better. 

  
  


Despite her words to Robin earlier in the day, this was not exactly how she’d imagined spending her 18th birthday. In her daydreams she’d had a real party, with actual friends there. In her daydreams there was a full-sized cake to share and a full eighteen candles. In her daydreams her dad was there, smiling and joking. 

In her daydreams she didn’t feel so alone. 

She smiled at her stuffed bunny she’d set up at the table just to have something with a face to talk to as the timer went off. 

“Almost cake time!” she informed him. 

She pulled the cupcakes out of the oven, set them on the stovetop to cool, and turned the oven off. 

“They just have to cool, Mr. Rabbit, then we can ice them, and, since it’s my birthday, I get to blow out a candle and make a wish,” she explained. 

She wasn’t crazy. Or, well, at least she didn’t expect a response. She knew Mr. Rabbit was stuffed. She’d known all those years ago when her Dad had given him to her for her birthday and she’s declared that they’d be best friends. She knew when he was the only one she had to talk to, when her Dad had stayed away - been kept away she’d learned later. None of that changed the comfort that Mr. Rabbit provided. None of that changed the fact that sometimes it was just nice to talk to someone, to share things with someone, even if that someone wasn’t strictly real. 

“And then, of course, the best part,” she said with a grin. “Then we get to eat the cupcakes!”

She tried to busy herself and ignore the enticing aroma of the cupcakes, but it was hard. She was about to give in and eat a warm one un-iced when the doorbell rang. 

She frowned. Who could it be? For a split second she hoped that it was her father surprising her, but he’d called her earlier and he’d definitely still been at sea. So who, then? 

She went to the door and opened it cautiously. She felt something inside her melt when she was met with a nervous smile and adorable dimples. 

“Happy Birthday!” Robin exclaimed. “Um, I hope it’s okay us dropping by unannounced, but...we brought cake!”

“We?” Alice asked, stepping back and opening the door all the way.

Robin, holding a large box that was clearly a cake from Granny’s Diner, stepped through. 

“We heard you might be in need of a party,” Sheriff Swan said, stepping through behind her. She offered Alice a smile and held up a shiny helium balloon. It read, “Get well soon”. “They were out of Happy Birthday ones,” Sheriff Swan explained sounding apologetic. 

“I love it!” Alice declared, taking it from her and beaming. 

“And I heard you might like flowers.”

Alice gaped as Mayor Mills presented her with a beautiful bouquet. 

The Mayor and the Sheriff were standing in her home along with Robin Mills, Queen of Storybrooke School. Alice felt like she must be hallucinating, except then Robin touched her on the arm and said, “Don’t be too impressed. She already had them in her office.”

“It’s the gesture that counts when you are throwing together a last-second surprise party, love,” said a tall woman with red hair, sharp blue eyes, and a smile that looked exactly like Robin’s. 

There was only one person she could be, and she was holding a large bar of chocolate with a bow on it. Alice liked her already. 

“I hope you like chocolate,” she said, holding it out.

“Chocolate is my favourite,” Alice assured her. “You run the apothecary, don’t you?” Alice asked, as a hint of recognition clicked in her brain. 

“That’s right. Zelena Mills,” Zelena extended her hand and Alice gladly took it. “My daughter said it was your birthday and insisted that we help you celebrate.”

Alice glanced at Robin, who suddenly seemed very intent on arranging some candles on the large chocolate cake she had brought. 

“It wasn’t insisted exactly,” Robin mutttered. “I just suggested that you didn’t have anyone to throw you a party for your eighteenth because you said your dad is away and...I don’t know. Everyone should have a party when they turn eighteen. You’re legal now! You can vote! You get a say in your life now, right?” Robin glanced reproachfully at her mother and aunt. “In theory, anyway.”

“You’ve got a few years before you’ll be making good decisions with that new freedom, though. Clearly,” Zelena replied, giving Robin a pointed look. 

“My car says so,” Sheriff Swan agreed. 

Robin rolled her eyes and continued to put candles into the cake. 

Alice stood there, clutching the chocolate bar tightly in her hand, and feeling rather overwhelmed. 

Robin had organized a party for her. A real one. With four whole guests. “Thank you,” she gushed. “Thank you so much for coming. Madame Mayor, Sheriff, Ms. Mills…Robin...I-“ 

Words failed her and she felt tears brimming her eyes. She blinked them away and smiled as brightly as she could, hoping that that would convey her appreciation. 

“Nobody should be alone in their birthday, dear,” Zelena offered. 

“And no need for the formality. I’m not on duty tonight,” Sheriff Swan said. “Emma is fine when I’m not wearing the badge.”

“And I’m not here as Mayor, so that’s Regina for me.”

“And Zelena will do just fine for me. Now, shall we have cake?”

“Where’s a lighter?” Robin asked. 

Alice pointed to her odds and ends drawer and Robin opened it and pulled it out. She lit the candles carefully, but quickly, then stood back. 

“Make a wish,” she invited. 

Alice moved over to the cake, offering Robin a smile of appreciation as she came to stand beside her. She looked down at the cake. She felt gooey and melty inside. She’d never expected anything like this. She’d imagined her birthday might be like this, but she hadn’t ever dared think it really would be. What did she possibly have to wish for? 

“Go on! The candles are gonna get wax all over the cake,” Robin encouraged. 

Robin’s elbow nudged her ever-so-slightly and Alice felt electricity at the touch.

It felt like a dream, and Alice suddenly worried that just like a dream it would vanish in the morning light. 

She had her wish, then. She closed her eyes tight and took a deep breath in. 

_ I wish that this lasts. _

She opened her eyes and blew out the candles. 

Robin and Zelena cheered. Regina offered her a warm smile, and Emma gave a little clap. 

_ Please, let this last, _ she thought. An added prayer to the universe. 


	3. A Birthday Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alice's birthday party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Robin's pov again. Sorry for the long wait. I've had some traveling and some writer's block. Hopefully the wait for the next chapter won't be as long as this was, though not a word of it is written yet, so I make no promises. Enjoy!

“Are you sure you want to stay, sweetie?” Robin’s mom asked her. 

Robin nodded. “Just a while.”

“Technically it’s already past your post-thieving curfew,” her mom reminded.

Robin rolled her eyes. “Come on. It’s her birthday,” she murmured in a hushed voice, glancing over her shoulder at Alice to make sure she hadn’t overheard. She didn’t want Alice to think this was just a pity party. 

It wasn’t. It really wasn’t. 

Nobody should be alone on a birthday, let alone a big one like eighteen. 

And Alice was...Well, she was surprisingly funny. And interesting. Honestly she’d thought that painting the hospital all day was going to be ridiculously dull, but Alice kept cracking little jokes that would make her laugh, or having these random little insights that Robin never would have thought of in a million years. And, yes, she was weird, but not scary weird or bad weird. She just...It was like she looked at the world through different lenses than everyone else. Maybe it was just the artist in her. 

“Please?” Robin asked her mom. 

Her mom relented. “Okay. Fine. But if you’re not home by midnight, I’m sending Emma out looking for you. If you take advantage of my generosity to try-”

“I promise I won’t try anything,” Robin interrupted, giving her mom a hug.  

“Alright. Well, thank you, dear, for having us for your birthday party,” her mom called over her shoulder. 

“My pleasure. Especially as I didn’t know I was going to have one,” Alice replied with a bright smile that only served to make Robin even more glad she’d thought of it. 

“We should head home, too,” Regina said.

Robin, her mom, and Emma all looked at Regina in surprise. 

“I mean I should - Sorry, it’s been a long week and Henry just went back to school, so I was used to saying ‘we’ again…Just shows I need to get to bed.”

Robin shook her head. Her aunt and Emma were not good at subtlety in small settings out of the public eye. Honestly, Robin didn’t think they were THAT good at subtlety even when out and about in their official capacities. 

If Alice didn’t believe Regina’s excuse, she didn’t say anything. Instead, she nodded happily. 

“Thank you for coming,” Alice said. 

“Happy birthday, Alice. It was lovely to meet you,” Regina replied. Her eyes darted from Emma, to the door and back. 

“I’m gonna go, too. Happy birthday. See you next Saturday. Let’s make sure it’s not before that?”

Alice giggled. “Promise I’ll stay out of trouble.” Alice turned to Robin as if expecting her to make her goodbyes as well. 

“I’m staying,” Robin informed her. “If you still want some company, that is,” she added, feeling suddenly self-conscious. 

“Definitely,” Alice replied, beaming at her.  

They saw everyone else to the door, then closed it behind them. 

They tidied up a bit, though truthfully her mom hadn’t left them much to do, and then they settled on Alice’s couch. Silence stretched out before them, and Robin let out a nervous chuckle and smiled awkwardly at Alice, who offered an awkward smile back. 

Robin let her eyes drift over the space. Truthfully it was cozier and homier than she’d have imagined from the austere exterior. The living room was open to the small, practical kitchen, with a modest dining space adjacent. Warm lighting filled the space. A fireplace with a handsomely carved wood mantel served as the focal piece in the living room, and artwork covered the walls in a sort of hodge-podge display. The spaces that weren’t covered in art were filled with bookshelves practically littered with books. Books were crammed into each shelf, with books laid horizontally across the top of them where there was space, and some shelves appeared to be two books deep. On the sturdy wooden coffee table in front of them stood a few more stacks of books and a large bowl with a shell collection. In one corner of the room stood an antique-looking globe with small, neon-pink and green dots scattered around it. Various knick-knacks filled the other flat surfaces around the room including a spyglass, a rather strange-looking musical instrument, an African mask, and what, if Robin wasn’t mistaken, appeared to be a sextant. The whole place felt very lived in and loved. 

“It’s nice in here,” Robin commented. 

“You think?” Alice asked, smile on her face, posture straightening. 

“Very homey,” Robin said with a nod. 

Alice grinned at her. “Thanks. I think we’ve done alright.”

“You have a ton of books. You need like a library room or something.”

“I’d love one! A proper one that just goes on forever, books as far as the eye can see. Books about everywhere and everything. This isn’t even all of ours. You should see my room!”

Robin knew how to breathe and she knew how to swallow, but apparently right in that moment she forgot that she wasn’t supposed to try both simultaneously. Her throat burned as she broke into a coughing fit and Alice looked on in alarm. 

“Are you okay? Do you need some water?” she asked. 

Robin couldn’t stop coughing long enough to say yes, so she nodded her head vigorously. 

Alice bolted up and ran to the kitchen. 

Robin’s whole face felt hot as she continued to cough. For a brief moment she thought she was going to get her coughing under control and compose herself, but then she breathed in and something caught in her throat and she was coughing again. 

Alice hurried back over to her and pushed a full glass of water into her hands. 

Robin took a few long, soothing sips, the cold water feeling like magic as it trickled down her throat. 

“Thank you,” she croaked after a few minutes, which sparked another few coughs. 

“Was it something I said?” Alice joked. 

Robin shook her head. It wasn’t. Not really. Okay, maybe something weird had happened in her brain when Alice had mentioned that Robin should see her bedroom, but it was definitely unwarranted and not Alice’s fault at all. 

“You okay now?”

Robin nodded. “Yeah. I think so.” Her voice sounded rough and scratchy and her throat felt a little raw, but she was fine. Just a little embarrassed. 

Alice must have been feeling some sympathetic embarrassment because her cheeks were flushed a pretty shade of pink. 

“It’d be a pretty bad birthday if my one remaining guest choked to death,” Alice commented. 

Robin laughed. “Don’t worry. You’re stuck with me for now.”

Alice gave her a funny little crooked smile. “I hope so,” she replied. 

The words felt weighted, but Robin wasn’t sure exactly how. She pushed the thought away. 

“So have you actually read all of these books? Or do you like use them as wordy paperweights or something?” she asked, changing the subject and reaching forward to pick up one of the books off the table. 

“Oh, I’ve read them all,” Alice assured her. “Some of them more than once. My favorites are in my room. Some of those ones are like old friends.”

Robin studied Alice for a moment. She was definitely a bit odd, but she spoke so openly, she was so unapologetically her, that it was really quite charming. Robin envied the freedom and the confidence to be herself that Alice seemed to have. 

“I used to love to read. My mom always read to me when I was a kid,” Robin replied after slightly too long of a pause. 

“What changed?” Alice asked. 

The question threw her. She thought about it for a second. She still enjoyed reading when she took the time, she just didn’t often take the time anymore. There were parties to go to and sports practice and shopping and lunches and...social THINGS. Then there were the shows and the movies to watch and the music or the podcast to listen to so she’d know the latest thing everyone was talking about and be able to contribute to conversations about it. All of it ate away at her time. 

“I don’t know. Nothing, I guess. I still love it, it’s just my priorities shifted.”

“So what do you prioritize now?” Alice asked. 

The question wasn’t asked in a judgmental way, but Robin couldn’t help feeling a little defensive. “You don’t pull any punches do you?”

“What?” Alice asked with a frown. 

“Nothing,” Robin muttered. “I don’t know. I guess I prioritize my friends.”

“The ones who don’t see you?” Alice asked. 

“They see me,” Robin replied defensively, knowing as soon as the words left her mouth that they were a lie. “Sort of,” she mumbled. 

Alice gave her a knowing smile but didn’t say anything. 

“I think part of it - the reading thing - is just that I enjoyed being read to more than reading to myself. There was something so soothing about my mom’s voice. I never wanted her to stop. I remember begging for just one more chapter before bed.”

“I’m sure she’d still read to you if you asked,” Alice replied. 

Robin gave her a funny look. “What kind of eighteen-year-old still has their mom read them bedtime stories?”

“The kind who enjoys it?” Alice suggested. 

Robin shook her head. “No thanks. Besides, as a general rule I’m looking to spend less time with her, not more.”

Alice giggled. “She seems nice, though. If I had a mum like that…”

Alice faded out and her expression clouded over.

Robin wanted to ask. She knew the rumors. Locked in the Tower everyone had whispered behind Alice’s back for a while. It was old news now and Robin had never heard anything substantiated. Her birthday wasn’t the time to bring up possible old wounds though. 

Alice shook her head and smiled again, but it wasn’t as bright as it had been and Robin felt her heart ache a little at whatever remembered pain had caused that. “Anyway, it was nice of her to come to my party.”

Robin wrinkled her nose. “I might not have given her much of an option,” she admitted. 

Alice giggled again, then her face softened and she looked at Robin with wide eyes. “Thank you. For that. And this. It’s nice not to be alone.”

Robin felt a blush creep it’s way up her cheeks. She shifted in her seat, feeling almost flustered. She didn’t know why. It was just a thank you. Except she hadn’t really done much. She hadn’t even invited any of her friends to come. If Henry had still been home she’d have dragged him along, but that was different. She hadn’t dared ask any of her school friends because she’d been scared of their judgment. Which was stupid. Maybe all they needed to do was spend some actual time with Alice like she had. They didn’t even know Alice. Then again, did they really even know her?? 

“It was nothing,” Robin mumbled.

Alice reach out and covered her hand with her own where it rested on the couch between them. 

“It was something to me,” she said softly. 

Robin swallowed down the sudden lump in her throat and looked down at their hands. 

The warmth radiating up through her arm and across her chest from her touch made her heart pound a little bit harder. 

She hadn’t done much. She should have done more. Yet Alice was sitting there looking at her like...Well, Robin wasn’t quite sure what it was like. She wasn’t quite sure why it set butterflies loose in her stomach, either. 

Alice glanced down at their hands, too, and seemed to realize what she was doing. She pulled her hand away and placed it in her lap, clasping it with her other hand as if to keep it in place. 

“What electives are you taking this year?” Alice asked, smoothing her hands over her blue pleated skirt. 

“Oh, um...I don’t really remember. I remember thinking when I signed up that I didn’t really want to take one of them, but whatever.”

“So why did you?” Alice asked. 

Robin knew the answer, but it sounded so silly in her head she didn’t want to say it out loud. 

Pretty blue eyes studied her in a way that made her feel like Alice might just be able to read her thoughts. 

“Your friends,” Alice concluded, looking away. 

“I can always drop it for a study hall or something,” Robin muttered self-consciously. 

Alice shrugged. “True, I guess.”

“I’m guessing you’re taking art electives?”

Alice nodded. “Painting and ceramics.”

“Sounds fun,” Robin said. “Sounds perfect for you.”

“So what would be perfect for you?” Alice challenged, looking her in the eyes. 

Robin wanted to look away, but something held her there, staring back into Alice’s deep blue eyes. Her gaze was sharp, questioning, and Robin felt bound to it, as if she couldn’t break their eye contact. She swallowed down the sudden lump in her throat. “I don’t know,” she admitted, the honesty falling surprisingly easily from her lips. 

She’d never dare admit that to Claire or Sofia or Amber. 

Alice looked away with a small smile on her face and Robin felt like she could breathe a little easier. She looked down at her hands and rubbed her thumbs together anxiously. She felt exposed in a way she wasn’t used to. 

“Well, what do you like?” Alice asked. “Besides stealing cars,” she added, an attractive crooked grin playing at her lips. 

Robin grinned back. “That was one time! And I had to google how!”

“In that case I’m impressed you managed it,” Alice retorted. 

Robin stuck out her tongue and Alice giggled in a contagious sort of way, so soon they were both laughing. Whatever tension Robin had felt before dissipating as they did so. 

“But really: what do you like?”

Robin shrugged. She’d spent so much time in the past few years trying to like what she thought other people wanted her to that she hadn’t stopped to figure out what she liked. 

“Girls.” The word slipped out while she wasn’t paying attention and her eyes went wide once she’d said it. Why had that come up? It wasn’t like girls were a hobby! She was acting like an idiot tonight for no reason. It wasn’t like she wasn’t out to her family, but she’d only really alluded to it with most of her friends. Not that they’d really care probably. Most of them were pretty progressive, and she’d seen at least two of them make out for attention at a party before - not that that was that great, but still. 

Alice raised an eyebrow at her. “I don’t think that’s an elective at school or I might have signed up.”

Robin’s eyes went wider. So Alice was...And she’d just...And now she was smiling her crooked little smile at Robin and it was really pretty cute. Robin forced a little laugh and looked away. “Ha, yeah, well...I don’t know, I guess, what I like. I mean - okay this is kinda dorky, but I really like making friendship bracelets.”

Alice smiled broader. “Sadly not an elective for that either.”

“Damn. They just don’t offer good electives at our school.”

Alice laughed and the sound was musical to Robin’s ears. She had to smile in response. 

The subject changed to their community service and then again to some of the knick-knacks around the room - a nicely patterned small woven basket her dad had brought back from Panama, a Dan mask he’d brought her all the way from West Africa, a pressed and laminated four leaf clover brought back from Ireland. 

“Every stop, every shore, he finds me a shell and he brings it back and I put it in that dish,” Alice explained. “I’ve got one from just about everywhere. The conches are always my favorite though. I put them to my ear and hear the ocean and pretend, for a moment, I’m with him, hearing the same thing he is.”

Robin could practically hear the ache in Alice’s chest in her voice, and she reached out to take her hand without thinking. She gave it a squeeze and offered Alice a small smile when she looked at her with wide eyes. 

“Tell me about the globe,” she invited, hoping it would be a subject that would bring back Alice’s crooked grin. 

“Papa picked it up at an antique store around here,” Alice replied. 

“But what about the dots?”

Alice did smile then, and Robin felt like she’d won a small victory, though she wasn’t sure what it was exactly. She pulled her hand away, realizing that there was no need for a comforting touch if Alice no longer needed comforting. “Pink is for everywhere Papa goes and green is the places he’s taken me. Someday I plan to catch up to him.”

Robin’s jaw dropped in awe. “You’ve been to all those places?” she asked. 

“It’s not that many, really. Papa has been practically everywhere.”

Robin shook her head in wonder. “I’ve barely ever left Storybrooke,” she admitted, feeling suddenly lame and uncultured. 

Alice studied her for a moment, eyes bright, smile playing at her lips. “Do you want to travel?”

“More than anything,” Robin replied. 

“To run away from here or to explore there?”

“Is both an option?” Robin asked. 

Alice giggled. “I’ve found it’s better running towards something than away from it.”

“Maybe it depends on what you’re running from,” Robin suggested. 

“Can’t run away from yourself, no matter how far you go,” Alice replied in a quiet voice.

Robin frowned. “I’m not-“ she started to say, but when she looked at Alice, Alice wasn’t staring at her. Instead she was looking away, a little frown on her face once more. 

Before Robin could think of a suitable response, Alice glanced at the clock. “What time were you supposed to be home by?”

“Trying to get rid of me?” Robin asked, hoping it sounded like a joke even though her delivery fell flat. For some reason the idea that it might be the case made her stomach twist in knots. 

“Hardly. This is the best birthday I’ve ever had. I just don’t want you to get in more trouble.”

Robin checked the clock, too. She was tired and her bed was calling her name but home felt like such a far ways away and Alice’s felt...freeing. It was like a whole other world being here surrounded by bits and pieces from around the globe. It felt less claustrophobic than her own house. She was running out of time to get back, though. 

“Maybe I could...Would you mind if...What if I asked her if I could stay here? Would that...Would that be okay?”

Alice’s eyes were wide as she looked back at Robin. Robin traced the line of her throat when Alice swallowed hard. Was she not sure how to turn her down? Did she even have space for a guest to stay? How presumptuous did she have to be to invite herself to stay the night after already inviting herself over? 

“Sorry, I-“

“No, that’s fine! Um, yeah. Sure. Of course!” Alice offered her a beaming smile. “I’ve never had a sleepover party before.”

Something tugged at Robin’s heart strings at that, but she smiled in return. “Great, thanks. I’ll just call my mom and see if she’ll go for it.”

Robin stood up and stepped away, pulling out her phone and dialing her mom.

“You’d better be telling me you’re about to walk through out front door, young lady,” her mother answered. 

“Okay, here’s the thing-“

“ROBIN CORA MILLS, YOU HAD BETTER NOT HAVE STOLEN ANY MORE MOTOR VEHICLES-“

“No! Mom! Nothing like that! It’s just late and I’m tired and I was wondering if I could stay here tonight.”

There was a pause on the other end of the phone. 

“Here being…?”

“Alice’s. Look she’s all alone and it IS her birthday, and-“

“Is there something you’d like to tell me about the nature of your relationship?” her mother cut her off. 

Robin’s eyes went wide and she looked over her shoulder at Alice to make sure she hadn’t overheard. How mortifying that would have been! Fortunately, Alice seemed to be perusing one of the books from the coffee table. “What? No!” she hissed. 

“You’re really still there?”

“Do you want picture proof?” Robin asked. 

“That would be nice, actually, yes.”

Robin rolled her eyes. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” her mother replied, matching her attitude. 

“If I send you proof of location I can stay the night?”

“I expect you home for breakfast in the morning!” 

“Okay!” Robin jumped at the offer. 

“Feel free to invite Alice,” her mother added. 

“Right, yeah, okay, maybe. Thank you, Mom,” Robin replied. 

“Send that picture!”

“I will! Love you! Bye!”

Robin turned to Alice with a grin. “Take a selfie with me to prove I haven’t run away and I can stay!”

Alice grinned at her, her crooked little grin that Robin was having a hard time not classifying as “really cute”. 

Robin moved to her side and ignored the sweet scent of lilacs that infiltrated her nostrils as Alice brushed her hair out of her face. Robin put her arm around Alice and turned the camera on her phone to the front facing one then held it up. She made sure to have Alice’s living room clearly visible in the background. 

“Smile!” Robin said, though she could see Alice already was, her grin beaming from ear to ear. 

Robin leaned her head against Alice’s and smiled, then took the picture. She took a second just to be sure. 

“One more,” she said when she felt Alice start to move beside her. She pressed the button again and then put her phone down, feeling oddly tingly. “Thanks,” she said as she opened a message to her mom and clicked on the first picture and sent it. 

[Robin] See? Just at alice’s.

A minute later her phone dinged and she read the message and rolled her eyes. 

[Mom] Okay. See you FIRST THING in the morning. Love you.

“You’re sure you don’t mind if I stay?” Robin asked. 

Alice shook her head. “I want you to.” 

Robin wasn’t sure why that answer put a lump in her throat, but it did. She swallowed it down and managed a smile. “Great...so where do we sleep?”


	4. One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alice and Robin spend more time together and the school year starts up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry that it has been SOOOO long since I've updated, and this isn't even a very long chapter. I've been suffering from some rather severe writing block (that is sadly ongoing). I hope there are people still interested in reading this story.

Alice woke to soft hair tickling her face and a weight over her arm. She opened her eyes to waves of mousy blonde and breathed in warm vanilla. 

_ Robin _ . 

She blinked hard, processing the memories that flooded her brain. She’d offered her Papa’s bed. It wasn’t like he was using it right now, and he wouldn’t have minded, but Robin said she felt weird taking his bed, so Alice had taken the next logical step and offered her own. She could have slept in Papa’s, she realized, now that the glow of morning sunlight was streaming in through the cracks in her blinds creating stripes of white along her ceiling and illuminating her room with more clarity than she’d been able to see with the night before. 

Then again, the weight of Robin on her arm was warm and inviting, and Alice had to rub her palm to resist the urge to reach out to touch Robin more. She was only there to be nice. She was only there out of sympathy. She must have heard the rumors, and while they weren’t all true, they were far from all lies either. 

There were moments, though, that it hadn’t seemed like sympathy. She hadn’t HAD to stay the night. Okay, maybe Robin had been actively trying to avoid home. She had tried to run away from it by stealing the Sheriff’s car of all things not all that very long ago. 

Robin shifted in her sleep, a small hum emanating from her lips. 

Alice swallowed hard and carefully extricated her arm from Robin’s body. 

It almost worked. 

“Mm?” Robin asked, rolling over onto the arm that Alice had just freed and blinking at the room. “Where-” she began to ask, then her eyes focused on Alice. 

Big, pale green eyes, like the sea before it breaks into foam. 

Alice looked away so she wouldn’t drown in them. 

“Alice,” Robin mumbled as if the name was foreign to her tongue. She blinked again. 

“Morning,” Alice murmured, her voice a bit hoarse. 

She felt Robin shiver on her arm. 

“Could I maybe, possibly, have my arm back, please?” Alice suggested. 

Robin frowned, shifted slightly, and then realization dawned on her face. “Sorry! Sorry,” she said, moving over quickly, a faint blush tingeing her cheeks an attractive shade of pink. 

“It’s fine,” Alice assured her. 

Robin looked at her phone and sighed. “My mom has already texted. She wants me home for breakfast.”

Alice tried not to feel disappointed. She’d already gotten so much more than she’d ever expected for her birthday, and it wasn’t actually her birthday anymore, either. 

Robin sat up and stretched and Alice did her best not to notice the toned muscles of her arms or the way the T-shirt she’d lent her to sleep in lifted up and exposed a stretch of smooth, pale skin around her stomach. She wasn’t blind to Robin’s beauty, but she didn’t need to focus on it either. 

“Actually,” Robin said, squinting down at Alice and wrinkling her nose in an adorable sort of way, “she said I could invite you. My mom makes a pretty good breakfast and it’s the last morning before school starts again, so she’s apt to have gone all out. You interested?”

Alice felt her heart skip a beat, and she nodded. She couldn’t stop the beaming smile that spread across her face. “Yes. Very.” After a moment’s thought she added. “If you’re sure.”

Robin’s answering smile was a little groggy and it made something in Alice’s chest twinge in a not wholly unpleasant way. “Yeah. I’m sure.”

  
  


Robin’s house was big and tidy. Pale yellow paint brightened the hallways and the kitchen while a soft peach made the living/dining room feel warm and inviting. Family pictures lined the walls, some of Robin and Zelena, some of them with her Aunt Regina and cousin Henry, some of just the two sisters at various ages (though more from what were obviously recent years) and some of Robin or Henry alone. None, Alice noted, of Robin with friends, though there were a few pictures of her as part of teams: both soccer and lacrosse. 

The kitchen had a breakfast nook, and this was where Alice found herself, tucked into a rounded bench seat beside Robin, admiring the waffle she’d made from the waffle bar that Zelena had set up on the counter. She’d topped hers with raspberries, blueberries, bananas, strawberries, powdered sugar, maple syrup, a drizzle of chocolate syrup, and whipped cream for good measure. Robin gave her an amused look. 

“Hungry?” Robin teased. 

“It all looked so good. I couldn’t choose,” Alice replied, feeling the hints of a blush creeping up her cheeks. She hoped she didn’t appear greedy. 

“You know you could have made more than one waffle to try with different toppings, right?” Robin pointed out as she dug into her waffle topped with strawberries, chocolate syrup, and whipped cream. 

“Thank you so much, again, for inviting me,” Alice said to Zelena, waiting until she’d sat down at the table as well to start in on her own waffle. 

“It’s really not a problem, dear. It’s nice to have someone with manners around,” Zelena replied with a reproachful glance at her daughter. 

Robin looked up, and asked, “Wha-?” around a mouthful of food. 

Zelena sighed and rolled her eyes, and Alice giggled. 

“This is delicious. I’ll have to get your waffle recipe,” Alice enthused, after a few mouthwatering bites. As far as she was concerned, the blend of flavor toppings was exquisite, if a bit on the sweet side. 

“Of course! So tell me: how was the rest of your birthday? My daughter didn’t try to lead you astray, did she? No attempted car hotwiring?” 

“Heeeey! I’d like to point out that she and I only got to know each other a little in jail,” Robin interjected, and Alice giggled again. 

Zelena gave Robin a fond, amused look. 

“Yes, well, Robin showed me the picture of the mural you did at the hospital. I have to say, I think it was an improvement. It’s a shame the board didn’t feel the same,” Zelena said, and Alice felt her heart well with pride. 

Not only had Zelena liked her art, but Robin had bothered to show it to her. Her artwork had been worth talking about when she wasn’t even present. The thought thrilled her. 

“Thank you,” she mumbled, a blush creeping up her cheeks. 

“No, really. It showed genuine creativity and what an eye for beauty. Have you been painting long?” Zelena asked. 

“My whole life, just about. For a while art felt like it was the only thing that kept me sane,” Alice replied, realizing only once Robin frowned in her direction, her eyebrows furrowed and forehead wrinkled, that her reply had likely been a tad too honest.  

Zelena’s careful answer of, “I see, well, you’ve got real talent,” suggested the same. 

“Thank you,” Alice mumbled again, feeling more self-conscious than proud this time. 

“Are you excited for the school year to start?” Zelena asked. 

Robin rolled her eyes. “Mom, nobody in high school is ever excited for the school year to start. Who looks forward to homework and lectures?”

Alice shrugged. “I don’t mind it. Some of the classes can be interesting, and the art department has more equipment than I have at home. Besides, there’s people around, even if I mostly don’t interact much.” 

_ Too honest, again, _ she thought with a little wrinkle of her nose. She shoved another bite of food into her mouth before she could say something that would be too much. She could be too much, she knew. It was part of what had made her dad’s men uneasy.  Her therapists (there had been many over the years) had often suggested the benefits of an internal filter. Alice tried, from time to time. She figured there was a natural sort of filter because her brain thought so much, often too many things all at the same time, that she couldn’t possibly say all of them. If she filtered too much, though, then people didn’t get to know her, and then, once they did, she became too much anyway. She’d found it was best to tuck herself away when she was having a bad day, the kind that seemed to make her too much for people, and otherwise not filter, too much. At least then she didn’t have to wonder where she might stand with people. 

Her papa had tried to advise her, though, that there was such a thing as too much, too soon. “Always be yourself, Starfish, but you don’t have to present all of you on a first meeting. Let people have the joy of discovering who you are.”

Alice thought he was more than a bit biased. 

“You’re a bit of a loner?” Zelena asked. 

“Not always by choice, but yes,” Alice replied. 

Zelena smiled at her. “I know the feeling. It gets better after high school. Sometimes it takes a while even then, actually.”

Robin frowned. “I thought you and Aunt Regina ruled the school.”

Zelena shook her head. “Not quite. Your Aunt Regina was quite the ‘popular’ mean girl for a time. I suppose I was a mean girl as well, but a bit more ugly duckling in those days, and not quite the popularity to pull it off. Fortunately, we’ve both come a long way.” 

Alice had a little trouble imagining the warm woman before her as a high school mean girl. Then again, sitting there in her kitchen, Alice had trouble imagining Robin that way as well, and she’d seen it in action at school herself. 

It wasn’t that Robin was a mean girl, per se, it was just that she was in the in crowd. Different, from them, but afraid to show it. Alice had always seen the uneasiness in her eyes, especially when her friends were being outright cruel to someone, but until they’d wound up in the same jail cell she hadn’t thought twice about it. 

“People do change over time,” Alice said in a agreement. “Most people, anyway.”

She didn’t want to think about the person in her life who hadn’t. 

“Robin, you have plenty of friends. Why don’t you include Alice the next time you and the girls are doing something? That way she will only have to be a loner if she chooses to be,” Zelena suggested brightly. 

Alice shook her head as Robin whined, “Moooooom!”

It was one thing to be invited to breakfast. It was something else entirely for her mom to force them into a friendship involving other people. 

“I really don’t mind being alone,” Alice said quickly as Robin began to mutter about homework and friends and school being hard enough without parents butting in. “Honestly, I’m used to it.” 

Zelena looked from Alice to Robin and back, then threw her hands up. “I was just trying to help, but I get it. Mother’s ideas are never the ‘cool’ thing to do.”

That wasn’t it at all. Not for Alice anyway. The way that Robin rolled her eyes made Alice think that she might agree with the sentiment. Alice’s mother’s ideas hadn’t been cool, but at least she didn’t have to deal with them anymore, and it had been in a very different way. 

“You could have just said ‘mother’s aren’t cool’ and that would have basically covered it,” Robin muttered. 

“Excuse you, young lady, but I’d like to remind you who allows you to live in her house rent-free. I’d say that’s a pretty cool thing for me to do.”

“I don’t have a job,” Robin pointed out. 

“And how nice of me to not make you get one to pay me rent,” Zelena countered. 

Alice snorted in amusement, and Robin looked at her with narrowed eyes.  

“Sorry,” Alice mouthed, and turned back to her waffles. They really were delicious. “I like strawberries,” Alice declared after a particularly sweet one practically dissolved on her tongue with the perfect balance of waffle and whipped cream to accompany it. “They’re so tasty.”

A giggle from Robin made her look up, and her heart skipped a beat at the dimples on her cheeks. 

“What?” she mumbled around another mouthful. 

“You’re so random sometimes,” Robin said. 

She’d heard that before, usually told to her in a scornful tone from her peers or a disappointed tone from her teachers. From Robin it sounded almost affectionate. She found herself grinning in response. She shrugged. “I guess so.” 

She took another large bite and glanced at Zelena. Zelena was smiling at her, but there was something in the smile that caught Alice off-guard. She couldn’t quite place it, but there was something knowing in Zelena’s smile. 

Alice felt her cheeks flush slightly. 

“I do hope you had an enjoyable birthday in the end, Alice?” Zelena asked. “I don’t think you actually said earlier.”

“Mm,” Alice nodded as she chewed an overly large mouthful, her jaw aching just a little. “Mhm! Yes. Thanks. Thank you for letting Robin stay over. It was really nice having the company.” 

Zelena smiled wider. “Of course. And I’m so glad you could make it for breakfast. You’re welcome anytime, dear.” 

Alice felt her chest swell with emotion at that. It was such a small offer, really, but it meant the world to her. It wasn’t that she was apt to take her up on it often, but the idea that there was somewhere that she could go when her dad was out of town where she would have company, and not company that was being paid to be there like Ruby at Granny’s, it made the long stretches alone sound a little less daunting. “Thank you,” she mumbled, sure she was blushing now. 

“Food isn’t always this good,” Robin warned. 

Zelena narrowed her eyes at her daughter. “You could always cook,” she pointed out. 

Robin smiled and batted her eyes. “I love you, Mom!”

Zelena chuckled and rolled her eyes. 

_ This _ , Alice marveled,  _ is what family is like.  _

  
  
  


Alice wouldn’t exactly say that she was EXCITED to start school, but the routine, the other people, the general curiosity of everyday life in high school...she didn’t mind it. This year felt...promising somehow, too. It was her last, for starters. That meant college applications and thinking about potential majors and places she might move. 

And this year, it seemed, she might actually have a friend at school. 

Alice wasn’t necessarily keeping an eye out for Robin. She was busy finding her classes and reviewing the syllabi and getting settled in a new locker. It just so happened that her trip to her new locker took her past Robin’s. 

She smiled when she saw her. 

She was surrounded by a group of girls, the popular clique, Alice knew. Robin’s clique, technically, though her shoulders were stiff despite the cute headband, the perfectly braided hair without a strand out of place, the crispy pressed uniform with the most stylish flair on the lapel. This was Robin in what people thought was her element. Alice could see it wasn’t. 

She caught her eye as she approached, and the cheerful, “Hi, Robin!” was out of her mouth before she noticed the deer in headlights look in Robin’s eyes. 

She felt the sinking feeling in her stomach even before Robin raised her hand for a half-hearted wave. 

She didn’t wait for the smile to fade from her lips before she was already heading away. 

She should have known better. 

“Do you even know her?” a scornful voice asked behind her. 

She quickened her steps and rounded a corner. She didn’t want to hear the response. 

Her heart pounded in her ears, and her stomach twisted into knots.  _ Stupid, stupid, stupid. _ Of course Robin wouldn’t have stayed friends with her now that they were back at school. That would have assumed that they were real friends to begin with. She shouldn’t have let herself get fooled.  

She made her way to her locker and leaned against it, breathing heavier than she should have been. 

It shouldn’t hurt. She still barely knew Robin. So what if she’d felt at home with her? So what if she’d thought there had been a connection? It was hardly the first person she’d misread. It was hardly the first “friend” that had turned out not to be one. 

Alice took a long, slow breath, and shook her head. No. This was not going to colour her whole day. She put her smile back on her face and put her books in her locker, grabbing an empty notebook for her next class out of it. She took another deep breath and shut her locker. It was fine. She’d always been a loner. No reason that should change senior year. She did well in her own company. Besides, she’d stop by the library after school and see Belle. She’d want to know how the first day back had gone. And her dad would be home in a few weeks, and he’d probably try to call. 

No, it was fine. She didn’t need Robin Mills in her life. 

Maybe she’d get lucky and not have to see her again today. 


	5. The Art of Apology

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robin tries to apologize to Alice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been so long since I updated this and I'm so sorry. I've had writer's block and my kids demanding my time and new story ideas that have demanded they be written instead. Anyway, I will try to update more regularly.

Robin had frozen when she’d seen Alice. It wasn’t that she wanted to shut her out, but she hadn’t expected to see her so soon on the first day of school. She hadn’t expected the caged feeling to return so immediately the second that she’d approached the building that morning, either. Then Tracy had run up to her and made a comment about how she could hardly tell she was wearing lip gloss at all and what shade was it, because it was really good matching and she was bound not to get in trouble for wearing makeup at school with it on, and Robin had felt a weight on her chest, pressing her down, making it harder to breathe. 

Then Laura had started flashing photos of the trip her mom had taken her on to Paris over the summer, and Stacy had insisted that she’d had to wear a headband because they were so “totally in vogue” since last week, and then Alice - Alice, with her hair plainly braided on one side to keep it out of her eyes but otherwise wild, and dark eyeliner the only makeup on her face, boldly marked in defiance with the school guidelines - had seen her and she’d smiled. 

Robin froze. She wasn’t entirely convinced that her heart didn’t stop beating alltogether. She wondered briefly if this was what it felt like being onboard the Titanic and watching the iceberg approach. It felt like two worlds colliding, as Alice paused and said a cheerful, “Hi, Robin!” She could feel her friends screeching to a halt in their conversation to take notice, and she watched as Alice’s bright smile faded and her lips pursed together. 

Her stomach twisted in knots and she raised a hand to wave. A little wave. A tiny wave, really. 

Too little, too late, she could tell, as Alice hurried off. 

“Do you even know her?” Leah asked, voice full of scorn, as if she was asking her about a crime she might have committed. Or worse, in their books: a social faux-pas. 

“Yeah. Kind of,” Robin muttered in reply, her eyes focused on the corner that Alice had disappeared around. 

“Wait, really?” Stacy demanded. “You’re friends with Weirdo Tower Girl now?”

Robin focused back on the conversation with a frown. She didn’t like that Stacy had called her that. She had no right. She opened her mouth to respond, but Stacy was giving her a look that made her feel two inches tall, and she shut it again. Stacy had the power to make or break her at school. They were seniors. Robin just had to make it through one more year and she was out of here. It was best for her to keep her head down and not rock the boat. If she could just hang in there, pretend she didn’t feel so damn caged, pretend her friends were real friends, then she could leave on top and then she could go and never look back. 

“We just ran into each other over the summer. Let’s not make a big deal over it,” Robin replied. “Did you see Tracy’s manicure she got for school? Isn’t it cute?” 

Robin breathed a small sigh of relief when the conversation turned, but the pressure in her chest felt even worse than it had before. 

She’d apologize on Saturday. Alice would probably understand. It wasn’t that they couldn’t be friends, it was just that she wouldn’t fit in with her school friends, Robin told herself. Why would Alice WANT to fit in with her school friends, a quiet voice at the back of her head asked. 

  
  
  


“Shit,” she muttered when she walked into gym class and watched Alice very purposefully look anywhere but at her. Of course they’d actually have a class together. She knew Alice’s feelings had maybe been a little hurt, but to have her not even look at her…

Why did it hurt? It shouldn’t have hurt. Okay, she definitely deserved to feel a little bad, but she didn’t expect the depth of the guilt when she walked towards Alice, and Alice moved away. 

“Alice!” she called out. 

Alice stopped moving, but didn’t look at her. Instead, Alice began to pick at her fingernails, studying them closely as if they were inherently interesting. 

Robin jogged a few steps and then came to a stop beside her. “Hey.”

Alice didn’t respond, but her eyes darted quickly to Robin, then away again. 

“I’m sorry about earlier. I did wave, I just -”

“It’s fine. I got it,” Alice cut her off, then moved away again. 

Robin followed. “My friends -”

“It’s fine,” Alice repeated, continuing to move down the bleachers. She was going to run out of room eventually. 

“Alice, I should have -”

“Robin!”

Robin froze in her tracks, but Alice kept moving until there were five people between them. Robin plastered a fake smile on her face and turned. “Laura!”

“We have gym together!”

Robin kept her smile frozen on her face and nodded. She glanced over her shoulder at Alice, but Alice was staring down, not looking her way at all. “So we do!” Robin replied, a fake cheerfulness in her voice. “How fun!” 

She heard a snort from somewhere behind her, but there was no way to know if it had been Alice or not. It probably hadn’t even been in relation to her. 

“I hope we get to play football this year in gym. You know, that’s what the rest of the world calls soccer. Literally people were playing it everywhere when we were in Paris. Like every park there were kids playing. Even outside Notre-Dame kids were playing. I played a few times. There were some VERY cute French guys, and, well, how can you say no when one asks you, right?”

Robin nodded along, trying to pay attention to Laura. She got it. She’d been to France. It was an amazing trip. She was as caught up as she needed to be. Still, she didn’t want to be rude, and at least travel was interesting. She glanced around trying to spot Alice, but she didn’t succeed as more kids filed in. She was spared listening to more of Laura’s ramblings when the bell rang and then a whistle blew. 

“Okay, everyone. Class has started!” a gruff voice barked at them. 

“Leroy?” someone asked in a shocked voice, and Robin had to admit that she was surprised to see the grumpy, balding mechanic dressed in sweatpants and t-shirt with a whistle around his neck. 

“Coach Leroy to you!” he replied. 

“Since when?” another kid asked. 

“Since now,” he said. “Now this is gym class. That means exercise. Every time you’re here. It is not leaning against the wall class. It is not lounging on the bleachers class. It is not catch up with your friends class. You need to be in gym clothes at the start of class, and for god’s sakes if you’re not going to shower afterwards at least put on deodorant, got it?”

Some grumbles rumbled through the class, but there was a general chorus of agreement. 

Laura raised her hand. “Um, Coach Leroy?”

“Yeah?” 

“I didn’t think we’d need gym clothes on the first day of school. We usually just talk about the year.”

“Talking doesn’t sound like gym to me. Guess you’re doing exercise in what you’re wearing today. Lose the heels, though. Which reminds me: appropriate footwear, folks! Sneakers! No heels, no flip-flops, no crocs, no whatever else you can come up with. Sneakers. Got it?”

Another chorus of begrudging agreement rang out through the gym. 

Robin didn’t mind. She liked not having to wear heels. She liked that the pressure was off in gym class about what she was wearing and how her hair was styled. Sure, she had cute sweatpants and matching sweatshirts, but they were  _ comfortable _ . 

“Anyone wearing inappropriate footwear today take it off and leave it against the bleachers. We’re gonna work on some basics today. Throwing and catching. We’re gonna partner up.”

Laura grabbed Robin’s arm, and she was aware of people bustling to grab a partner around her, but Coach Leroy cut them off. 

“No, no, no. I’ll be assigning the partners or all you’ll do is choose whoever you want to talk to the most. I don’t want to hear any complaining.” Coach Leroy looked down at a clipboard in his hands. “Right, ummm...Lacroix, you’re with Bertram. Mills, you’re with Jones…”

Robin felt her heart leap into her throat. Of course. Of course the universe would pair them together on the  _ first _ day of school when she’d already managed to screw things up and piss her off. Of fucking course. 

People paired off as assigned around her, but Alice didn’t come to her. She scanned around, searching for the now familiar flash of blonde hair, and finally spotted her looking at the floor near the far wall. As Robin looked at her, her eyes darted up and met hers, then she looked down again, making no effort to move. 

Oookay, apparently she was going to have to go to Alice. 

“Boo,” Laura pouted as Robin pulled her arm away and gave her a small, apologetic wave. 

Alice didn’t look up again as she headed over. It wasn’t that big of a deal, was it? She’d sort of said hi. She had actively been talking to other people. Well, listening to other people. 

Robin sighed as she thought about how she’d have felt in Alice’s shoes. Okay, maybe another apology wouldn’t be excessive. 

“Guess we’re partners,” Robin said as she reached Alice.

Alice grunted non-committedly and didn’t look at her. 

Robin took a deep breath. “Look, I’m really sorry. I should’ve just said hi.”

Alice nodded, but still wouldn’t meet her gaze. 

Coach Leroy called for each pair to grab a ball and start passing it back and forth. “For every catch you miss, both of you run from one side of the gym to the other!”

Almost everyone in the class groaned. Alice didn’t, Robin noticed as they headed over to the ball cart. She didn’t either. 

“What if we just have really bad coordination?” someone asked. 

“Guess you’ll get really good at running,” Coach Leroy replied. 

Alice grabbed a ball before Robin had a chance to, and led Robin back to a far corner of the gym, all without saying a word. 

“Alice, come on,” Robin said, catching the first throw. “You caught me off guard.”

“Yes, well, it can be so strange when people you know greet you in the hallways, can’t it,” Alice retorted, catching Robin’s pass back. 

Okay, fine. Alice had a point there. Alice wasn’t just anybody she knew, though. Alice was...Robin frowned. Alice was what, exactly? Because replaying the last week in her head, it sure read like Alice was a friend, and yet when she’d seen her in the hall that wasn’t what it had felt like. 

Alice’s throw caught her in the stomach then dropped to the floor. Around them a few other people were already running laps. 

Robin sighed, kicking the ball gently to the wall, as Alice took off running, and she sprinted after her.  

“Okay, fair. It’s just you don’t want to be around those girls. Not really,” Robin panted breathlessly.

“You mean your  _ friends _ ,” Alice said, the emphasis on the last word so sharp that it almost felt like a physical attack as they hit the far wall and turned to run back. 

Robin rolled her eyes. “They’re not like you,” she argued, picking the ball back up and throwing it to Alice, who caught it easily. 

“And what am I like, Robin?” Alice asked, finally looking Robin in the eye. 

Robin wished instantly that she hadn’t. She swallowed hard, trying to find words that seemed to want to do anything but form coherent thoughts in her head. Had Alice’s eyes always been so blue? Her gaze hadn’t always been so sharp. 

Alice threw the ball back, hard, and Robin caught it with a small “oof”. Alice raised an eyebrow at her, clearly still expecting an answer. 

“You’re...real,” Robin finally managed, dropping her eyes and throwing the ball back. 

Alice paused for a moment, and when Robin glanced back at her face, she saw a range of emotions flash across there, all too fast for Robin to pinpoint. When her expression settled, she didn’t look quite as angry anymore. 

“Careful, your friend might see us talking,” Alice said, throwing the ball back, but this time it wasn’t with as much force. 

Robin glanced over at Laura. She was looking rather pleased with her catching skills. Robin was a little impressed herself. She’d expected Laura to be running. Maybe she’d actually picked up some skills in France over the summer. “Why would I have a problem with that?” Robin asked, even as she felt a knot of anxiety tighten in her gut. 

Alice gave her a skeptical look. “Really?” she shot back, her tone knowing. 

Robin shrugged. Laura wasn’t so bad on her own, but she was just as much in the group as Robin, and if she mentioned Alice to Stacy or Leah or Tracy…

She paused mid thought. If she mentioned Alice to them then what? At the very least they’d probably have some unfair and not very nice things to say about Alice, and then Robin would once again be faced with the dilemma of whether to open her mouth and defend her or to keep quiet. What if they went straight for her instead? Writing her off, turning their backs because she dared be friends with someone who wasn’t like them. 

It shouldn’t be important, Robin knew, but somehow it still was. 

“Wouldn’t want her to think you and I might be friends,” Alice said. “You gonna throw that, or…”

Robin threw the ball back and Alice caught it. “Hey, we  _ are _ -”

Alice threw the ball wide, very much on purpose. “Oops,” she muttered, and started running. 

Okay, so maybe she was still annoyed. Maybe she still had every right to be. Robin sighed again and started running too. She chased her all the way across the gym and back. Alice was surprisingly fast, when she wanted to be. 

“Okay, well we’re still something. And I should’ve said hi this morning, and I’m sorry. Still,” Robin muttered as she caught her breath. 

Alice studied her for a long moment, then went and got the ball and handed to her. “Yeah. You should’ve,” she agreed. 

“I’m saying it now. Hi,” Robin said, throwing her the ball gently. 

Alice caught it easily, rolled it over in her hands for a moment, then threw it back. “Hi.” 

Robin watched as Alice opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it again. She was about to ask what she wanted to say, when Coach Leroy blew his whistle. 

“THIS IS NOT DODGEBALL YOU IDIOTS! Mills! Jones! Go pair up with Thatcher and Boyd, please! Show them how to pass a ball!”

Alice gave Robin a look that almost seemed disappointed, and then she headed over to James. Robin half wanted to chase her. Okay, so that seemed maybe a little extreme given that they were in gym class and the teacher had separated them, but things still felt unsettled. She didn’t like it. 

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow if she saw Alice in the hallway she’d say hi. Even if Alice didn’t say it first. It was just one word. It’d be fine. 

  
  
  


Except she didn’t see Alice in the halls on Tuesday, and in gym Coach Leroy set them up in teams of five to scrimmage basketball games, and Alice wasn’t on her team. She didn’t see her in the halls on Wednesday, either. In fact the only place she saw Alice for the rest of the week was in gym class, and every day Coach Leroy insisted on dictating who they could interact with, and somehow she and Alice never got placed in the same group. Robin  _ did _ wave, though. Every single class. 

By Friday, Alice gave her a small smile when she waved back. 

She’d take it. 

  
  


Robin was flipping through pictures on her phone Friday night, trying to kill time before she met the girls at Tracy’s for a movie night that undoubtedly would turn into a house party. That’s just what seemed to happen at Tracy’s house. She wasn’t really in the partying mood, especially since she knew she had to be up early for the stupid community service. She was just starting to think that perhaps there needed to be fewer bathroom selfies on her phone, when she hit the pictures of her and Alice from Alice’s birthday. 

Her breath caught in her throat as she looked at Alice’s beaming smile, her bright blue eyes, the slight flush to her cheeks, the pretty curls in her hair. She looked so happy it was positively radiating out of the pictures. 

Except in one. The last one. The one where she’d started to move away and Robin had caught her a little off guard. 

She still looked happy. She still had a broad grin on her face, but this time her eyes were on Robin. 

Robin’s heart beat a little faster. She couldn’t place the look in Alice’s eyes, but it reminded her of just what a dipshit she’d been on Monday. She flipped away from it, going back to one where they were both looking at the camera and smiling. 

How did more people not notice her at school? And not just as the weird girl that rumors swirl around about. How did more people not notice how beautiful she was? Not in a fake way. Not with her hair perfectly done or makeup done to the latest style or perfectly manicured nails, but in a real way. It caught Robin off-guard. 

She flipped a few more photos back and stopped at the one of Alice, smiling awkwardly next to her mural on the back of the hospital. She zoomed in and studied the mural closer. It was really stunning. So intricate, so carefully crafted. Robin had never really gotten the whole idea of being moved by a piece of artwork before, but she looked at the mural and she  _ felt _ things. She zoomed back out and took in the shy look on Alice’s face - the way her eyes were looking to the side instead of at the camera, the way her crooked smile didn’t show her teeth. 

Robin clicked out of her photos and opened her messages. She clicked on the ongoing group text with her friends. 

[Robin] Sorry girls, not going to make it tonight. I’m not feeling great and gotta be up early for some lame shit my mom needs me to do. 

A moment later three replies popped up. 

[Laura] Boo! We’ll miss you!

[Leah] Lame!

[Stacy] You suck!

Robin rolled her eyes, and when a reply from Tracy came in she didn’t even read it. Instead she opened a new text to Emma. 

[Robin] Hey, do you have Alice’s number?

It was a long few minutes before her phone buzzed. 

[Emma] I’m not inclined to give out private information of Storybrooke’s citizens, Robin. 

Robin sighed heavily. Of course Emma would choose  _ now _ to be all professional. 

[Robin] Please? It’s important. 

It was a longer wait this time before her phone buzzed again, but when she read the message she grinned. She quickly opened a text to the number Emma had given her. She attached the picture of her and Alice smiling together at the camera that she’d sent to her mom as proof the other day. 

[Robin] See? We are friends.

She took a deep breath as she set her phone down. She was  _ not _ going to wait for a response. She was going to put on a movie at home and just relax and unwind after her first week back at school. She was going to put her friends and Alice and everyone else out of her mind and just chill. 

Fifteen minutes later she checked her phone. Still no reply. 

Ten minutes after that she checked it again. 

“It doesn’t matter,” she told herself. 

Five minutes later she checked again. She was just about to put her phone back down when it buzzed. 

[Alice] How’d you get my number?

Not exactly the response she’d hoped for. Not that she’d been hoping for a response. Robin hesitated. Now that she thought about it, it was kind of stalkerish the way she’d gotten Alice’s number. Alice wasn’t dumb, though. She’d probably work it out on her own. There probably weren’t that many people she could have gotten it from. 

Robin tried to tell herself that thought wasn’t mean and failed miserably. 

[Robin] Emma. Hope that’s okay.

It was another eight minutes, not that Robin was counting, before Alice texted her back. 

[Alice] Yeah. See you in the morning. 

Robin smiled. 

[Robin] See you then. 


	6. The Friend Debate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alice mulls over whether being friends with Robin is a good idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again for the long wait! I'm still struggling with writer's block and I'm doing inktober, so all of my extremely limited free time and creative energy is currently being poured into keeping up with that. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the new chapter!

Alice stared at her phone as if it might explode at any moment. It kind of felt like it already had. She tapped at it carefully and the picture that Robin had sent popped back up on the screen. Robin looked happy. Genuinely happy. It was easy to tell when people weren’t really happy in pictures. Their eyes never twinkled right if they weren’t really happy. Robin’s eyes were dazzlingly bright in the picture. 

They were very pretty eyes, Alice couldn’t help but think. Such a dazzling pale green. 

She shook her head and let her eyes shift down to the words beneath the picture. “See? We are friends.” 

Were they, though? It didn’t feel like they were at school. At least, not outside of gym class. In gym class, even with Robin’s so-called friend in there with them, Robin did make a bit of an effort. Then again, Alice had been careful not to see too much of Robin outside of gym class, and she was fairly certain she’d succeeded in keeping Robin from seeing her outside of gym at all. There were perks to practiced invisibility. 

“In here kind of late, aren’t you?” 

Alice looked up into a familiar kind smile when she heard the unmistakable Australian accent. “Hi, Belle,” she replied with a grin. Maybe it solidified her loser status, but she was happy to count the librarian among her friends. She was the only person she’d ever met who loved books as much as she did. “I was just reading.”

“Your phone?” Belle asked with a pointed nod to where it sat on the table in front of her. Belle took a seat across from her, tucking her brown curls behind her ears and leaning forward with interest. “Usually you’re hard pressed to look away from a book, but you’ve been staring at that for the last fifteen minutes.” 

Alice felt a blush start to creep it’s way up her cheeks. “Just...got a message I wasn’t expecting.”

“Oh?” Belle prompted. “From who?”

Alice hesitated. Did Belle know Robin? Without a doubt she knew her aunt. Likely her mother, too. The Mills family was big around town. “A...friend. Of sorts.”

Belle raised a curious eyebrow at her. “Of sorts?” she echoed. 

“Whether we’re actually friends or not is sort of up for debate,” Alice replied.

“And what side of the debate are you arguing?” Belle asked. 

Alice hesitated again. “The not friends side, I guess.”

Belle frowned. “That seems like a lonely side to argue.”

Alice sighed. “Safer though, isn’t it?”

Belle narrowed her eyes at Alice for a moment, studying her closely, then she leaned back in her chair and put her hands in her lap. “Tell me about this possible friend.”

“Well...we go to school together, but we’re not in the same social circles. I wouldn’t want to be, honestly. Her friends are...not very friendly. But she’s...when we spend time together outside of school she-”

“Wait, so this is a friend you’ve seen over the summer?”

Alice shrugged. “We have to do community service together.”

“Robin Mills? That’s who texted you?”

God, Storybrooke was a small town. Most of the time Alice didn’t mind, but sometimes it was suffocating. She understood why someone with Robin’s status would want to run. 

Alice felt a blush begin to creep it’s way up her cheeks. She nodded, slightly. 

“You weren’t joking about different social circles. Star of the track team, queen of the school? And you’re arguing AGAINST being her friend?”

“She’s not so keen on being seen with me at school,” Alice replied. 

“Ah. She gave you the snub.”

Alice nodded, then sighed. “But, maybe, she’s sort of tried to make up for it since.”

Belle leaned forward again and raised an eyebrow at her. “Oh?”

“We have a class together. She’s apologized. And…” Alice glanced at her phone.

“She texted you tonight,” Belle concluded. 

“Apparently Sheriff Swan gave her my number.” 

“Really?” Belle looked surprised. “So you didn’t give it to her?”

Alice shook her head. 

“But she found a way to get it?”

Alice nodded. She looked down at her phone, then unlocked it and shoved it across the table to Belle. 

Belle picked it up and looked at the picture on the screen. Her eyes studied it closely for a minute, and when she looked up at Alice it was with an expression that Alice couldn’t quite decipher. 

“Well, maybe you should give her a second chance? It never hurts to have another friend,” Belle suggested. 

“It hurts when you lose them,” Alice pointed out. 

Belle pursed her lips, then nodded. Alice knew she hadn’t exactly had an idyllic childhood either. “It’s a really lonely way to live, though, Alice. Just think if you’d decided not to bother chatting to me.”

Alice considered this point. She was right. It was lonely. Achingly so at times. It was better when her dad was home, but he could never stay for long. “Maybe,” she conceded.

Belle smiled. “Did you text her back?”

Alice nodded. 

Belle gave her a knowing look. “Were you nice?”

Alice let the hint of a smile curve up the corners of her mouth. “I wasn’t mean. I have to see her in the morning for the aforementioned community service.”

“And are you going to be nice then?” 

Alice grinned. “I was considering it.”

Belle lit up Alice’s phone so that the picture was bright again as she handed the phone back to Alice. “Sometimes connections happen despite our best efforts, you know.”

With that, Belle stood up and got back to work. 

Maybe Belle was right. That didn’t mean she couldn’t be wary, though. 

  
  
  


“Brought you breakfast.” 

Alice turned in surprise to see Robin holding up a plastic tupperware container. 

“My mom made it for you, actually. Waffles. She wasn’t sure if you’d...Anyway, here.” 

There was an awkwardness to her movements that wasn’t usually there that Alice noticed as the tupperware container was unceremoniously thrust into her hands. It gave Alice pause, but Robin didn’t give her long to contemplate it. 

“Hope you’re hungry. There’s a lot of it.”

“Thanks,” Alice replied. She pried open the lid to the still warm container and was met with the enticing aroma of syrup and waffle. 

“She threw strawberries and whipped cream in, too, for good measure, since you appreciated them so much when you came over.” 

Alice frowned. Was Robin Mills being shy? She wasn’t meeting her gaze, she was shifting her weight continuously, and...was that a faint hint of a blush on her cheeks? 

“Are you okay?” Alice blurted out. 

Robin did look at her then, brow creased in confusion. “Yeah, I’m fine. I mean, I’d rather not have to paint the hospital on a Saturday morning, but other than that…”

Alice couldn’t help the smirk that spread across her lips, though she tried to. Maybe shy was the wrong word, but Robin was acting strange, and it was kind of cute. 

“Are YOU okay?” Robin asked. 

Alice nodded. 

There was an awkward pause, and Alice wasn’t quite sure what to say. They should get to work, although stopping to eat the waffles first was definitely an enticing idea. As if reading her mind, Robin patted her jacket and pulled out a fork. 

“Oh. Mom sent me with this, too.” 

“Thanks,” Alice replied, her fingers brushing against Robin’s as she took the fork. A shiver ran down her spine. 

_ That’s unexpected _ , a small voice in the back of her head said. She ignored it in favor of tucking into the waffles.

At the first bite her eyes fluttered closed and an unholy noise escaped the back of her throat. They really were mouth-wateringly delicious. 

When she opened her eyes again, Robin was looking at the ground just past her, her cheeks tinged a slight pink. 

“You okay?” Alice mumbled around a mouthful of waffle. 

Robin’s eyes snapped up to meet hers, and she nodded. “Yeah. Fine. I’m fine.”

Alice studied her for a minute, and she noticed Robin squirm. Alice looked away. She’d been told before that her gaze could be too intense. It was something she’d worked on with one of her therapists for a while. 

“Actually, I just wanted to say...I really am sorry. For Monday, I mean. I didn’t mean to...I really didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I should’ve just said hi.” 

Alice moved her gaze back to Robin, and she registered the remorse on her face. It might have felt big, but it wasn’t really that big of a deal, was it? “It’s okay. I get it.” 

She saw Robin’s face fall, and she realized that Robin had taken her words the wrong way. Robin was already moving away to pick up the painting supplies, but Alice set the waffles down and reached out to grab Robin’s hand, spinning her around. Warmth flooded up her arm from where they touched. 

_ Definitely curious, _ the voice in the back of her head said. She shook off the thought when she saw how startled Robin looked. 

Alice instantly dropped her hand, and told herself she did  _ not _ feel colder. That would hint at a complication she neither wanted nor needed. Trying to be friends with Robin was already stressing her out, she didn’t want... _ that _ . 

“I mean it. I understand. We’re in high school, right? Who doesn’t feel judged and make bad decisions?” Her words were more forgiving than she’d thought she was, right up until the moment when they’d left her mouth. They were right, though. 

“You don’t seem to,” Robin replied, softly. 

Alice let out a laugh. “You say to the person sentenced to community service with you.”

That got a smile out of Robin and Alice couldn’t help feeling slightly triumphant. Rather than think about that reaction, she turned back to her waffles.

“But, if it makes you feel better,  you CAN get started without me while I eat these waffles,” Alice suggested with a cheeky grin. 

Robin wrinkled her nose and tilted her head to the side. “Mmm...I’m good, thanks.”

  
  
  


“This is going to take forever. We are never going to be done. We are going to be painting for the rest of our lives,” Robin moaned, collapsing onto the ground and looking up at Alice pitifully. 

She had streaks of beige paint in her hair and on her clothes, and a smudge across her forehead. Alice didn’t really want to think it, but it was kind of adorable. “I think you might’ve painted you more than the hospital today,” she replied. 

Robin stuck out her tongue, then picked up her paintbrush from the paint tray and flicked it at Alice. 

“Hey!” Alice protested as a big glob of paint hit her on the cheek. She wiped it off, smearing it across her cheek, and, without stopping to think, reached out to paint Robin’s cheek in retaliation. 

Robin gasped and grabbed her wrist with one hand while bringing the paintbrush up and painting a solid line down Alice’s shirt. 

“Oh, that is it! You’re in trouble now!” Alice threatened. She reached for the paint tray and stuck her hand fully in the paint remaining in it before reaching out and smearing the paint down Robin’s face and shirt. 

Robin’s eyes went wide as she scrunched up her face, then brought her hands up to wipe away some of the paint. “Did you really just do that?” 

Alice grinned. “I did. Yes.”

“Really??”

“Really,” Alice replied, reaching out to the paint tray again, ever so slowly, in anticipation of more retaliation.  

“Oh, this means war!” Robin declared. She dove for the paint tray, but Alice was already touching it, snatching it out of reach. 

Robin scrambled to her feet as Alice stuck both hand squarely in the paint then turned to flick her fingers at Robin. Robin reached past her, and managed to grab a corner of the paint tray. She yanked down and the paint splashed out of the tray and onto Alice’s side. Alice shrieked, but she was laughing, too, and by this point so was Robin. 

“Hey!” someone yelled, and Alice froze in the middle of wiping paint off on Robin’s jeans. 

Both girls turned to see Emma, arms crossed, unamused expression on her face, watching them. 

“You’re supposed to be painting the hospital,” she reminded them. 

“She started it,” Alice said. 

“No way. All her,” Robin argued, but when Alice glanced at her, she was grinning. 

Emma pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed heavily. “Tell me I don’t have to supervise the two of you every Saturday.” 

“You don’t have to supervise us every Saturday,” Alice and Robin said in unison. 

They looked at each other and giggled. 

Alice looked back at Emma in time to catch her rolling her eyes. 

“Any chance you got any paint where it was meant to go today, ladies?”

“We did. We’re pretty much done with what we can reach without ladders or scaffolding. Unless your plan was for us to learn how to levitate,” Robin replied. 

“You get right on that. In the meantime I’ll make sure you’re set up for next weekend.” Emma looked from Robin to Alice again and sighed. “You two are a mess. Go home. Get cleaned up.”

Robin saluted, and Alice laughed. She couldn’t help herself. Robin was funny when she wanted to be. 

Alice wiped some of the rapidly drying paint off her T-shirt, and rubbed it across Robin’s arm. “See you at school!” Alice called over her shoulder as she jogged away before Robin could retaliate. “Thanks for cleaning up!”

She giggled as she heard Robin grumble after her. She’d help next time. 

  
  
  


If she hadn’t been thinking about Robin, she might’ve noticed that she hadn’t had to unlock her house when she got home. 

If she had realized that she hadn’t had to unlock her door, it might have occurred to her that someone else was in her house. 

It didn’t, which is probably why she jumped when a deep voice said, “Hello, Starfish.” 

“Papa!” She rushed into his arms and hugged him tight. 

She let his warm, familiar embrace engulf her and felt all the tension and loneliness that had filled her weeks without him melt away. He smelled like sea air and soap and home - so much more like home than any building could ever be. “I missed you, Papa,” she mumbled against his chest. 

“I missed you, too, Starfish, but...that paint on you is dry, isn’t it? It’s just my wardrobe’s not that big, and I do quite like this shirt.” 

Alice pulled away and looked sheepishly down at her rather painted clothes. She could just throw them away because she knew the paint wasn’t going to come out, but she had a lot more painting left to do. She may as well keep it. “It’s dry.”

Her dad gave her an amused grin and she felt her heart well up with love for him as she remembered how nice it was just to see his face not through the pixelated phone screen. “Dare I ask why you’re covered in paint, then?”

Alice wrinkled her nose. She hadn’t exactly been forthcoming with the story about her night in jail and subsequent sentencing when they’d spoken while he was at sea. It would be hard to hide from him now that he was home, though. “Community service,” she replied, closing one eye and squinting at him through the other, a little fearful to gauge his reaction. 

He raised an eyebrow at her, then shook his head with a soft chuckle. “Court ordered?”

“Sheriff ordered,” Alice admitted. 

“Did you think something needed beautifying that didn’t?”

“Oh, it did!” Alice assured him, taking comfort in the fact that as lonely as she was so much of the time, there was someone on this planet who knew her well enough to know exactly what she’d done. “It’s just the hospital disagreed with my method of beautifying, so we’re redoing it.”

Her dad raised his eyebrow at her again. “We?”

_ Damn, _ she thought. She hadn’t meant to tell him about Robin. He would get all giddy excited thinking she’d made a proper friend when Alice was still cautious about the whole thing. She’d made a weekend friend, she’d admit, but that wasn’t exactly the same thing as an all the time friend. “Me and another girl from school. Also Sheriff ordered community service.”

As she’d anticipated, her dad looked interested. “Did she try to beautify the hospital with you?”

Alice shook her head. “She tried to steal the Sheriff’s car.”

Her dad let out a bark of laughter. “Not high in the brains department, then.”

“She’s smarter than that would lead you to believe.”

“Did she get anywhere in it?”

“Hotwired it and got it almost out of town,” Alice relayed. To her surprise her papa looked almost impressed. 

“That’s harder than you’d think, you know,” he told her with a little wink. 

Alice giggled. She knew well enough that her dad had his share of misspent youth tales. 

“Well, maybe you can bring your delinquent friend round here sometime. I’d like to meet her,” her dad said. 

Alice made a face. “It’s not like that, Papa. We’re...It’s just community service. She’s not really my…” The words wouldn’t quite leave her lips. She didn’t like lying, but especially not to her papa. It was complicated, and she felt a slight stab of guilt at even considering to say that Robin wasn’t really her friend, which was, really, if she was being honest with herself, quite ridiculous after the week they’d had. 

She watched as her father frowned in concern, and changed her mind. 

“Sure, Papa. Maybe sometime.”

He beamed at her. “Right, then. How about you go get cleaned up while I make us some supper, and then you can fill me in on everything I’ve missed.”

Alice grinned. “Deal.”

 


End file.
